The father of a former Swansea City striker has spoken of the chaotic scenes near the end of a premier football match in New Zealand on the weekend that saw EIGHT players sent off and the game abandoned following a mass brawl.
Former New Zealand coach Kevin Fallon, now manager of Auckland-based Manukau United saw five of his players red-carded in the game, while three from Northern Regional League rivals North Shore United, were also sent-off.
Seven of those red cards came in the sixth minute of stoppage time following a mass brawl and the referee abandoned the match.
Fallon's son Rory, had a productive year at the Liberty Stadium after signing from Plymouth Argyle in January 2006 for £300,000 playing 40 games for Swansea City and bagging 13 goals.
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His father played professional football for Southend United in the 1970s but is best known for being assistant coach of New Zealand in the 1982 World Cup, before taking sole charge of the All Whites in 1985, when they won 19 and drew 11 of his 52 games in charge.
But even the seasoned coach never witnessed events before that unfolded on the weekend with Fallon claiming one of his players was punched off the ball that sparked the mass melee.
He told NZ Stuff: "It was just an absolute mess. You just wanted to pull the shutter down and go home.
"I'm not defending stupidity, don't get me wrong. There's one or two things that happened from stupidity from players and I don't coach that and don't want that, and they'll certainly be hearing about it."
A preliminary match report said the violent conduct included headbutting, throat grabbing, striking with excessive force and referred to the incident as "an all in brawl".
North Shore were leading 2-1 when the match was abandoned.
Two Manukau players and one North Shore player were sent to the sin-bin earlier in the match, with one Manukau player still there when the melee broke out, leaving them with just five available players when the match was abandoned by referee Nick Waldron.
"There's no way anyone could sum it all up because it was such a mess," Fallon said. "There's no way anyone, including Kevin Fallon, could tell you exactly what went off when it went into a melee.
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"A lot of people were grabbing people to stop people from doing anything. It was such a mess. I've never seen such a mess in all my bloody time coaching."
Fallon said he felt one particular player was hard done by, believing he was "nowhere near" the incident despite being shown a red card.
Asked whether he felt the same way about the other dismissals, Fallon said: "I couldn't tell you. It was indescribable. I'm not saying I saw everything because I bloody didn't.
"It was just a skirmish but it was a big one. The amazing thing was the way the card was 'red, red, red', he was just pointing anywhere.
"Nobody could've come to that conclusion in what happened in that incident."